Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Mundane


She steps back and examines the sheets, and then walks to the beds and irons out all the creases with the palms of her hands. One last look and the pesky perfectionist in her that occasionally surfaces pushing aside the wabisabi loving free spirit lets out a whistle or something that sounds like one. She never really got how to whistle, but she tries - like she keeps trying how to wrap the flat sheet over the fitted sheet to utter perfection. "A coin should bounce on it" a bit of information she absorbed from the magazine in the Doctor's waiting room echoes in her ears.

"Make the bed early in the morning. when we walk into a room and see a made bed, our day starts with the same 'made' feeling" Her grandfather used to say. Bits and pieces of his mundane observations come to her every now and then as she tries to figure out the neglected little bits of life. When she first discovers the fitted sheet, she discovers a joy similar to the cliched sliced bread. "What jugaad!" She is as amused at the invention as she is hassled at the complexity of folding it to perfection. She would recollect how her grandfather folded his towels or dusted his prized books in the book case. She does not give up. Ambitious she isn't but passion is an entirely different ball of wax. Besides, it seems to have seeped into her through her gene pool or perhaps through taking in the nitty gritty of her Grandfather's personality. A 'how to video' is the need of the hour.

She settles on the floor crisscross applesauce and spreads the fitted sheet in front, carefully overlapping their edges and tucking the sides in, like crafting origami. The king sized sheet folds into the size of a notebook, except thicker. She look at the perfect square and lets out a whistle, or something that sounds like one - adding the imperfect accent to her perfectly ordinary existence.

Picture courtesy - Diren Shah. Pench National park, Cottage in the jungle.

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